Abandon New Labour, David Lammy tells party
The government must go beyond the public services to win the next election, skills minister David Lammy has said.
Speaking at a Fabian Society event, the Tottenham MP urged the left to move on from New Labour to address “where people’s lives are at” by finding new “movements” to back.
His comments came hours after the government announced its ten-year strategy for the NHS, featuring a range of long-term initiatives which analysts say are designed to reinvigorate Gordon Brown’s struggling premiership.
Mr Lammy criticised the “bullet point” style of government and said: “[We need] a story that’s richer than just the NHS or education. We’ll have to go beyond that to create a movement if we’re going to do it next time.
“We have to move into the public realm, where people’s lives are at, and finding movements that go with the grain.”
He attacked the “managerial” trends of New Labour, adding “for all New Labour’s strengths, it wasn’t really a movement”.
And he championed his own ability to “stand on the shoulders of New Labour and look outwards”.
His speech sought to draw developments in US politics with the Labour party’s current situation, in an effort to demonstrate to the party’s leadership the need to regalvanise ahead of the next general election.
Mr Lammy said it was significant that both Barack Obama and John McCain had come from outside the political elite, suggesting a similar frustration exists among those who feel shut out of both Washington and Westminster.
“People do feel that Westminster is made up of a small elite, that spends more time talking to itself than the rest of the country – and in a coded and managerial language that only it understands,” he said.
“It’s dangerous because people struggle to find the connections with this political class that seems to operate in a different world.”
Labour has found itself too easily “slipping into the politics of opposition”, he added, before warning the reason “I try to remain united and loyal” is because the alternative will result in Labour being out of power “for many, many years”.
He concluded by calling for major changes to the party’s dialogue with the public, tying wider interest in politics with Labour’s future success.
“There aren’t many people like me who are in a position to say that. I will go on pushing. what we need now is something more radical,” he said.
